Silver Streak Comics #3 - pt. 2

Not many days left in December to work on the ol' blog, but let's try to get through Silver Streak Comics #3, if nothing else.

This is the last page of Bill Wayne, the Texas Terror. Here he consistently shoots twice per turn, but I already discussed ways of accounting for that in the Hideouts & Hoodlums rules last time. This time, I want to point out the neck sheathe for a concealed knife -- and what an insanely dangerous place to store a knife that seems to be, to me.

Panel 5 is a clear example of simultaneous initiative.

Now we're going to look in on Lance Hale again, comics' only loincloth-clad interplanetary warrior.

That is one incredibly durable spaceship, since it is traveling faster than light when it crash lands. No one inside is even harmed!

Traveling faster than time transports you, not into the past or future, but into spirit-land here, which is a highly unusual twist. Spirit-land is inhabited by beast men (long ago presented as a playable race for 1st ed H&H in...one of the Trophy Case issues; I forget which one...).

How kind of the artist not to burden us with having to view that ferocious battle!

Here is some unusual evolutionary science: spiritmen have no bodies, but are somehow able to interact with Lance and grapple him. Having no souls puts them just below mankind "in the cycle of evolution." How did they evolve to have no souls or bodies?

As a reminder, Lance wears an armband that lets him operate as a superhero, wrecking things like chains (the door category) with ease.

That is a highly untraditional Crystal Ball, giving bodies to body-less beings instead of scrying.

Or is the Crystal Ball only an illusion generator? King Loti is revealed as a beastman...or a kenku...or a type I demon?

Can spiritmen/beastmen turn invsible, or is King Loti a beastman magic-user?

And what manner of invisibility is this, that Lance can see him but Dr. Grey can't. This is not like the Invisibility spell, so it must be a special ability of spiritmen, one that gives a saving throw vs. spells to resist.

Here we have the age-old question that has always plagued D&D -- how to adjudicate disbelieving in illusions? It seems that Lance here gets a saving throw just by stating the intention to disbelieve, or to "use his own will power."

Here's a special rule that will keep players from attempting to disbelieve in illusions all willy-nilly: disbelieving in one is so draining that you are too weak too move -- essentially paralyzed -- for 1-4 turns afterwards.

A chair is soft cover, improving Lance's AC by 1 (which he desperately needs, since he's almost naked).

Dr. Grey is taking quite a chance on a scheme that doesn't make much sense. Why does he need a silver bowl to disbelieve in illusions? And what if the spiritmen weren't illusions? Or are spiritmen always illusions?

This is from the next feature, Ace Powers. Here we have a very rare complication from combat -- arm paralysis caused by taking damage. Now, we could make up a new rule that any head blow that doesn't cause unconscious has a chance of a different result, and we could even design a random table for that...but the paralyzed arm doesn't here really change the combat any, so it passes the smell test for flavor text to me.

Tying the Hero to a steam radiator seems a low-key deathtrap that I'm surprised we've never seen before. Since the steam has to build slowly, it could start as 1 point of heat damage in turn 1, 1-2 points in turn 2, and so on.

This is one of those strange instances in comic books where taking damage causes consciousness instead of unconsciousness. It runs counter-intuitive to how damage works in both H&H and, frankly, every game system I can think of.

Duplicate keys must be like a skeleton key.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Pep Comics #2 - pt. 2

Next up is Jack Cole's second installment of The Comet. The Comet is on the trail of a master criminal who appears to have magical powers -- he can make his face appear in the clouds at giant size, and he can make armored cars leap into the air and disappear. Spoiler -- all this is going to be explained by the end, as he's actually just another mad scientist.

The adventure takes place in the Everglades -- coincidentally where RT2 Adventures in Fun World, the third published Hideouts & Hoodlums adventure, takes place.

If the armored car companies are keeping the disappearances a secret, then how does The Comet know where each of the cars disappeared, accurately enough to put on a map...?

Usually, when you see 11 x's on a map, you can triangulate to some central point, or see some other pattern involved. In this case, The Comet still has to spend a whole two weeks flying around, just hoping to spot a clue from above.

A phone booth concealed in a tree is a pretty good clue. Wireless communication would have made it a lot harder to follow this clue. Also, had The Comet just kept flying instead of using the boat, he would have missed the hideout altogether. Maybe it's because the duration ran out on his fly power...?

It's unclear if The Comet was hurt and stunned by the whirlpool, or if the two thugs succeeded in winning the initiative and getting their grappling attacks in first.

Noiseless electronic motors might count as a mad science invention by 1940 standards.

Here we get the explanation for the giant face in the sky. I've written before about how much more convincing two-dimensional projections must be in a comic book universe (metaphysical commentary on the two-dimensional nature of their universe?). Projecting onto clouds would fool no one in the real world.

The Comet has a much different idea of what "success" is than I do; I would be much less cavalier about nearly smashing my own eye to a pulp. Just looking at that panel makes me a little woozy!

Oh, one last spoiler -- the armored cars are being lifted into the sky via magnets on cables that no one sees because it's dark.

So now we're moving on to the next feature, which is Rocket and the Queen of Diamonds. Rocket is a Flash Gordon clone, although one who never seems to think it's appropriate to put on a shirt or pants. Maybe he thinks that's okay because his bad guys wear midriffs, cutoffs, and starfish on their heads.

This was written by prolific author Manly Wade Wellman, who will go on to do better things.

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A few game mechanics points here: the guy with the baby rattle delivering a knockout headblow just by outflanking Rocket, which I am not comfortable with. I'm going to keep the headblow to just surprise attacks.

I can imagine there are some positions one could chain someone

up in that would limit their ability to use leverage; this doesn't look like one of them. Since Rocket can just push against the floor to break his bonds, I might even give him a bonus in this case.

I don't show you the page where the drugged Rocket attacks the queen because he doesn't know what he's doing, but the injected drug reminds me a lot of the Confusion spell.

Rocket rather cleverly creates a crowbar for himself using his wrecking things, and I could see rewarding that ingenuity with a +1 bonus to his wrecking things roll (and this time he'll need it to get through a stone wall).

Giant water bugs belong in the Mobster Manual, though they do pop apart awfully easy. They look pretty fierce, though...maybe 1+1 Hit Dice?  

I think panel 1 clearly shows giant water-bugs being encountered in a group of eight.

False walls are found the same as secret doors.

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This is supposedly by Charles Biro, but if he drew this, it had to be a rush job and far from his best work.

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Snipers are statted as assassins in the Mobster Manual.

Here and on the next page we get a rare example -- outside the cowboy genre, anyway -- of using fire to trigger a morale save.

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I can't say I ever sympathized with a Nazi guard in a comic book before, but this poor guy who doesn't know how he wound up this way, but just wants to pet a kitten, this guy I wish had at least gotten a fair fight against Boyle.

As per the rules for guards in all fiction, the stolen uniform has to be exactly the right size to fit.

That is a terrible secret code. However, if you want your players to feel like they're deciphering a code, without having to put any real work into it, this might be the code for you.

I like the compass! We almost never get a sense of direction in our comic book panels.

Boyle demonstrates the save vs. missiles and how that applies to guns here.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Daring Mystery Comics #1 - pt. 1

Timely's second anthology title begins with Simon and Kirby's Fiery Mask. Jack Castle (itself a pretty good hero name) is a physician, not a police forensics mortician, but is still called on by Police Captain Benson to examine a strange corpse. Perhaps Jack is from a small town with too small a police department to have its own mortician. Although that's not likely either, since there are high-rises at least nine stories high in his town.

Suddenly, a green light comes from nowhere, animates the corpse into a talking zombie, and paralyzes Castle. Only Benson makes his saving throw and shoots the zombie, killing it in one shot (but it can still monolog before it expires).

And so begins Jack's scenario -- he's given a list of places where bums and tramps like this zombie were last seen and told to check them out for clues (the police must be too busy).  His list of stops include a gambling den and a bar -- good locations for adventures, but Simon and Kirby have something bigger in mind, so those leads turn up nothing.

Luckily, Jack thinks to check for high electricity usage in the waterfront area, where all the missing people were from. He's guessed correctly that the green light came from a raygun and one that was run from conventional electrical power. It's a handy method of tracking down mad scientists, and not the last time we'll see it used in comics. What is extra ballsy on Jack's part is that, when someone answers the door at the hideout, he pretends to be from the power company and asks to come in to read the meter. A good Editor should at least give him a save vs. plot to see if the man opening the door falls for such a clever ploy.

That the doorman happens to be a zombie seems a delightful touch, recalling to my mind the balrog butler in Tegel Manor.

We get told, rather than see, a lot of details about the hideout Jack is led into. The ramshackle house on the surface is perfectly ordinary, but through a secret door in the kitchen is a set of stairs -- no, not a set, a "winding maze of stairs" suggesting that the stairs branch off in all directions at various landings. One of our first multi-level hideouts! The deeper levels are cave-like, with rows of zombies waiting in upright coffins. Some rooms are truly cavernous, with space enough for giant vultures to fly around. Giant vulture stats debuted in Supplement I: National, but these buzzards are much larger and probably at least 4 Hit Dice.

As if sometimes the case in comics, these zombies are the result of scientific experiments. There is at least one woman present who hasn't been changed yet because she needs more "treatments" (and gives Jack an opportunity to earn xp for rescues!).

Somehow, Jack leaps to the conclusion that the master criminal behind this uses hypnosis. Maybe he's trying to disbelieve all this as an illusion?  Hideouts & Hoodlums needs clear-cut rules for disbelieving illusions (probably tucked into the description of one or more illusion spells).

The Master seems to be a giant free-willed zombie, appearing to be about 14' tall. That might put him at 10 Hit Dice.  The Master may also be a mind reader, because he seems to immediately know who Jack is. Curiously, the Master's monolog makes it seem like he's always been this height instead of it being the result of some experiment of his. Perhaps he's Marvel's first mutant?

Up to this point, this has all been origin story for Jack, with him earning XP as a Fighter. When The Master's raygun explodes, it transforms Jack into a Superhero. His costume seems to just be having a ripped shirt.  He punches out The Master with one blow, suggesting he has enough brevet ranks to already have the Super Punch power. His ability to melt chains with a touch is just wrecking things with flavor text added. He uses a Leap power, but it isn't clear which level of Leap he's using (it could be as simple as Leap I).  Blowing away the giant vultures with his breath...that seems like it must be the power Gust of Wind, but the Editor has either added some extra kick to it or has created a higher-level version of that power (Greater Gust of Wind?).

The next feature in this issue is John Steele, Soldier of Fortune. It opens in the heat of battle – though where and between which warring nations we don’t yet know!  John rushes into a building for cover and finds an enemy soldier about to shoot a woman, so he disarms the soldier with a disarming shot from his gun, then drops it so he can punch the guy a few times. The last punch serves as a pushing attack instead, sending his opponent reeling across the room. But he must have split his damage between pushing distance and real damage, because the hit still knocks his foe out.

Rescuing the woman turns out to have been a good deal, because she was a plot hook character – with a secret mission (which she promptly tells John Steele all about).

To complete the mission, John has to get this unnamed lady across enemy lines. To accomplish that, John comes up with the bold plan of stealing a tank. Luckily, John manages to gain surprise on the tank crew of a passing tank. Also luckily, it’s a small WWI-era tank, so it’s too small to have a rear-facing machine gun mounted on it anyway. They get pretty far in the tank, but a grenade takes it out. Now…I’m wondering if explosive weapons should have a wrecking things chance?

John has grenades of his own, but it isn’t clear if he started with them or found them in the tank and took them as trophy weapons.

That a motorcycle with a passenger seat just happens to drive past just as John needs fresh transportation for them both seems too coincidental for a random encounter. And, indeed, it seems the encounter was planned to lure John and the female agent into a trap. Players could be forgiven, though, for thinking this was a lazy giveaway from an Editor who just wanted to keep his story moving.

Suddenly finding himself in a trench with enemy soldiers again, John passes the chance to shoot with a gun in favor of fisticuffs. Why? Since the soldiers don’t have drawn weapons either, John gets two attacks with his fists, doubling his chance of hitting. He also knows how easy it is to disarm shooters in H&H.

(Issue read at Marvel Unlimited.)